Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Putting aside politics and remembering 9/11 is something that everyone did today. There were memorial services all across the United States as everyone came to remember that day 11 years ago. Read more about the services that went on around the country.

Americans marked the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks Tuesday in familiar but subdued ceremonies that put grieving
families ahead of politicians and suggested it's time to move on after a
decade of remembrance.

As in past years, thousands
gathered at the World Trade Center site in New York, the Pentagon and
Shanksville, Pa., to read the names of nearly 3,000 victims killed in
the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

But many felt
that last year's 10th anniversary was an emotional turning point for
public mourning of the attacks. For the first time, elected officials
weren't speaking at the ceremony, which often allowed them a solemn turn
in the spotlight, but raised questions about the public and private
Sept. 11. Fewer families attended the ceremonies this year, and some
cities canceled their remembrances altogether.

"I feel
much more relaxed" this year, said Jane Pollicino, who came to ground
zero Tuesday morning to mourn her husband, who was killed at the trade
center. "After the ninth anniversary, that next day, you started
building up to the 10th year. This feels a lot different, in that
regard. It's another anniversary that we can commemorate in a calmer
way, without that 10-year pressure."

Meanwhile, Marisol
Torres clutched a photo of her cousin, New York firefighter Manuel
DelValle Jr., as she walked into the memorial plaza in lower Manhattan
for the somber ceremony. Torres told CBS New York station WCBS-TV the ceremony is as tough as it was after the first year.

"I
wish I could say it gets easier, but it doesn't," said Torres. "I think
you learn to live with your grief so in some sense it gets easier but
you sort of learn to carry that around with you."DelValle was 32 years old when he was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center.As
bagpipes played at the year-old Sept. 11 memorial in New York, family
clutching balloons, flowers and photos of their loved ones bowed their
heads in silence at 8:46 a.m., the moment that the first hijacked
jetliner crashed into the trade center's north tower. Bells tolled to
mark the moments that planes crashed into the second tower, the Pentagon
and a Pennsylvania field, and the moments that each tower collapsed.

President
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama observed the moment in a ceremony
on the White House's south lawn, and then laid a white floral wreath at
the Pentagon, above a concrete slab that said "Sept. 11, 2001 — 937 am."
He later recalled the horror of the attacks, declaring, "Our country is
safer and our people are resilient."

Victims' families in New York began the solemn,
familiar ritual of tearfully reading the names of nearly 3,000 killed,
with personal messages to their lost loved ones.

"Rick,
can you hear your name as the roll is called again? On this sacred
ground where your dust settled?" said Richard Blood, whose son, Richard
Middleton Blood, Jr., died in the trade center's south tower. "If only
those who hear your name could know what a loving son and beautiful
person you grew to be. I love you, son, and miss you terribly."

Thousands
had attended the ceremony in New York in previous years, including last
year's milestone 10th anniversary. A crowd of fewer than 200 swelled to
about 1,000 by late Tuesday morning, as family members laid roses and
made paper rubbings of their loved ones' names etched onto the Sept. 11
memorial.Commuters
rushed out of the subway and fewer police barricades were in place than
in past years in the lower Manhattan neighborhood surrounding ground
zero. More than 4 million people in the past year have visited the
memorial, which became more of a public space than a closed-off
construction site.

Families had a mixed reaction to the
changing ceremony, which kept politicians away from the microphone in
New York for the first time. Charles G. Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was
killed at the trade center, said: "We've gone past that deep,
collective public grief." But Pollicino said it's important that
politicians still attend the ceremony.

"There's something
missing if they're not here at all," she said. "Now, all of a sudden,
it's 'for the families.' This happened to our country — it didn't happen
only to me."

And Joe Torres, who put in 16-hour days in
ground zero's "pit" cleaning up tons of debris in the days after the
attacks said another year has changed nothing for him.

"The
11th year, for me, it's the same as if it happened yesterday. It could
be 50 years from now, and to me, it'll be just as important as year one,
or year five or year ten."